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My Political Downsizing Dream Team
Scott Walker, President (I want him to use his proven mettle to dismantle the administrative state over his eight years).
Rand Paul or Bobby Jindal, Vice President (I want them to take turns being president the following 16 years).
Ted Cruz, next Supreme Court Justice.
Ted Cruz (he’s smart, he can do two jobs) as Head of Department of State (80 percent of the offices and sub-agencies will be terminated).
Allen West to the Department of Defense (or maybe Ted Cruz can do it too).
Ben Carson heads the Department of Veterans Affairs (to do surgery on the agency and get it reorganized).
Trey Gowdy to the newly independent FBI. All other federal investigative agencies consolidated inside the FBI. Refocus the enlarged agency to investigate past and present political crimes in the federal government. (Remember? That’s why its called Federal Bureau of Investigation.) If he won’t do it, let Andrew Napolitano.
Carly Fiorina heads the Department of the Treasury (and 95 percent of the offices and sub-agencies, including the IRS, will be terminated).
Donald Trump heads the new Department of Immigration (consisting of formerly dispersed agencies of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, United States Customs and Border Protection, Office of Border Patrol, U.S. Border Patrol, United States Coast Guard, Office of Field Operations, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Relocate the agency to a new high rise (with casino) on Ellis Island. The casino functions to determine winning applicants.
Edward Snowden to head the new Department of National Cyber Security to protect the US from foreign entities (NSA to be disbanded and reduced functions to be moved to this agency).
Other agencies to be closed: Internal Revenue Service, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Justice (FBI made an independent agency). The rogue Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms will be disbanded and its headquarters filled with tobacco as tinder, doused with alcohol, and then set ablaze with an AK17 repurchased from Mexico; Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security (all sub-agencies closed except TSA’ real responsibilities, which will be privatized; and Immigration, Border Patrol, and United States Coast Guard, which will be moved to new Department of Immigration), Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of the Interior (National Parks to be granted back to respective states, farmland back to Cliven Bundy, and USGS privatized), Department of Labor, Department of Transportation (highways to be granted back to respective states. FAA to be privatized). If there was anything useful done by these agencies, the free market would have it up and running in a few months.
Also, all “independent agencies” and government-owned corporations will be privatized or terminated, including: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, NASA (parts of which go to Dept. of Defense), EPA, Export-Import Bank, United States Postal Service, Social Security Administration, Federal Reserve, and Amtrak. CIA is reduced and made a sub-agency in Department of Defense.
Terminating all those agencies will affect past legislation. So next, all federal laws to be repealed during the first term, and Congress will review and restore useful laws — one at a time. Laws will be limited to 50 pages and cite the enabling clause from the constitution. All laws must be individually reauthorized every 10 years.
That that will keep politicians busy and out of mischief.
Published in Culture, Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, General
While I like Allen West, he might not have the background to run DoD.
Other than that I could vote for your ticket at the top, noting a preference for Jindal over Paul. Actually I prefer several over Paul but could vote for him in any case.
Good luck. dt
Agreed. He was a handy high profile political personality with military experience.
He needs to run for Rubios open Senate seat. I would volunteer for his campaign in a heart beat.
And the general welfare clause does not count! It has to be an enumerated power.
Carson for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Mitt Romney for Sec. of Energy: His job will be to completely dismantle the entire operation.
Sec. Of Education: Kay James (see Romney comment)
If he doesn’t get Pres. or VP, Rick Perry becomes Sec. of the interior.
If he doesn’t get Pres. or VP, Scott Walker gets Sec. of Labor.
Sec. of Commerce: Carly Fiorina.
Sec. of treasury: Herman Cain.
Sec. of HUD: Bob Woodson. (see Romney comment)
And during the second 90 days?
I love all of this.
I raise a practical question (are we doing Stonehenge tomorrow? no.) Has anyone theorized about or attempted to shrink the federal government simply by imposing a (non defense) hiring freeze over a four year term? I would think you’d lose tens of thousands of workers a year to retirement and other attrition. Then as they shrink, you’re in a better position to combine, shift resources, shut down.
From your keyboard to God’s ears.
My only complaint is you need Terry Tate Office Linebacker during budget negotiations. Sometime say we’re crazy, but we’re firm proponents of paradigm breaking, outside the box thinking:
I think that’s part of what Jeb Bush proposed, actually (a little further down the main page).
Problem, of course, is that it works the same way as massive layoffs — you don’t get to choose who retires and doesn’t get replaced.
I believe that West has moved to Texas. Not that this tiny little detail should stop him from going back and running. We seem to have some very lax residency requirements almost everywhere.
Go Roman.Line em up by shifts on the Key Bridge. Knock every 1oth one off into the river.
Worse, it’s just a stop-gap. The trick for the ages is to eliminate the unnecessary functions (and departments) and streamline the administration of the needed ones.
As much as I like West, Kasich seems like a natural for a more efficient Defense department. And why not give Ted a third job: AG. The hearings for each job will be massively entertaining just to hear his theory of how he could hold jobs across branches. Not making him resign his senate seat would be the hat-trick and make for damned fine C-SPAN viewing in 2017 IMHO. [edit: damn ,no wonder I like Perry so much and used to be a computer programmer: always off by 1. Justice, AG, Senator = constitutional hat-trick.]
Would rather see Rand as Homeland Security head instead of VP. Maybe his dad in charge of the Fed to see if his head would explode. lol
I would like to see Hillary Rodham run the Dept. Of Corrections from the inside.
Great, except Trump, he’d sell visas.
Edward Snowden is a traitor to our country and should be imprisoned in solitary for the rest of his natural life.
That’s why we are sending him to Washington.
I always thought he was a Mastercard or American Express guy.
Haha. Touché!
Trump heads the new Department of Immigration …. Relocate the agency to a new high rise (with casino) on Ellis Island.
Funny!
Or Secretary of State Trump could convert all foreign consulates and embassies in the U.S. into massive high rise complexes, to facilitate returning illegals to their native soil.
These complexes — probably re-located to Atlantic City, which needs a boost — would include dormitories, classrooms, clinics, and cafeterias for the “undocumented” staff, all paid by the foreign nations of origin with the help of the casinos and stage shows on the first floor; tourist-friendly hotel rooms, restaurants, and virtual reality walking streets from the assorted homelands.
One more thing — each complex needs an ex-prize fighter doorman with a keen eye for spotting SEIU organizers.
I didn’t see the Bureau of Land Management in your list—did I miss it? Also, I’ve already floated the idea of Cruz for Attorney General several times, but I don’t doubt he could handle the other jobs. Might want to give him 90 days as AG; it’ll take some time to clean all the rot from Holder and Lynch.
Excellent idea, Cruz can clean it up in 90 days and close the DOJ the following month. Which is what I would proposed for the Bureau of Land Management. Federal lands would be given back to the respective states or individuals who have clear historic stake in the land.
I quit reading when I saw snowden
Killjoy!
Think of Snowden being sent to Washington as mandatory public service for his crimes. We can put an ankle monitor on him so he is not allowed to leave Washington. Surely that is worse than prison.
But seriously, he’s a traitor and should rot in prison.
I understand that sentiment. But I also see the benefit of his revelations. He told us the illegal things our government was doing. For example, we now know the NSA was leaking information to other federal agencies, information unrelated to national security or terrorism. These agencies would not reveal the source of the tip, instead they would do an inspection or sting operation as if they found the information on their own. This was information gathered by a general warrant, used against Americans in violation of the Bill of Rights.
Probably the worst way to downsize is hiring freeze. We want to fire everyone hired during Obama, eliminate all programs started or expanded under Obama, and hire ideological friendlies just as the Democrats do. Cut, cut deeply, cut widely.
Nope. He committed treason and condemned many people to die at the hands of our enemies.